Get the fuck up!

Pharoahe Monch

It's that time of the week again. During the interval between the opening act and Deftones the remix to Pharoahe Monche's Simon Says was played and I was happy and 'Juna and Bretton thought the beat was killer and asked me to get them the song. So I have. Four weeks later. In blog form.

In short: He will be at Rock the Bells and I consider him one of the best rappers who's never put together a complete album. Monch started out in the group Organized Konfusion and then signed to Rawkus during its heyday and put out Internal Affairs. One of the best around right now with incredible lyrical dexterity.

Simon Says


Oh No feat. Mos Def and Nate Dogg


Let's Go (Live)

Ignorance, Social Science, and Sex in the Prett-ay Paincave

Ignorance

Part 1: Ignorant Sociology
So I got through the first of my summer reading books last week, Ignorance by Milan Kundera. I won't run down the whole plot here, since anything I write won't do the book justice. Anywho, the story surrounds two emigres from the former Soviet Czechoslovakia who return after the fall of communism and the role of nostalgia, memory, and return. As is common in Kundera's work (well I gathered from reading this and The Unbearable Lightness of Being) there are many departures throughout the novel into philosophy, history, and other stories. One of these focuses on the story of some random young girl who has broken up with her first boyfriend and has just started seeing a new one. The passage that struck me was this:

One day she sees he new boyfriend hurrying toward her in a blue jacket and she remembers that her first boyfriend also looked good in a blue jacket. Another day, gazing into her eyes, he praises their beauty by way of a highly unusual metaphor; she was fascinated by that because her first boyfriend, commenting on her eyes, had used word for the word the same unusual phrase. These coincidence amaze her. Never does she feel so thoroughly suffused with beauty as when the nostalgia for her past love blends with the surprises of her new love. The intrusion of the previous boyfriend into the story she is currently living is to her mind not some secret infidelity; it adds further to her fondness for the man walking beside her now.

When she is older she will see in these resemblances a regrettable uniformity among individuals (they all stop to at the same spots to kiss, have the same tastes in clothing, flatter a woman with the same metaphor) and a tedious monotony among events (they are all just an endless repetition of the same one); but in her adolescence she welcomes these coincidences are miraculous and she is avid to decipher their meanings. The fact that today’s boyfriend bears a strange resemblance to yesterday’s makes him even more exceptional, even more original, and she believes that he is mysteriously predestined for her.

What struck me most about this passage (and this chapter, really) is the similarity I see when I conduct empirical studies of social life. I am at first amazed by the patterns and resemblances that are apparent in day-to-day interaction and the role social location plays in social action. An awe, an excitement, fills me when I pick these things up and then apart. But the endless repetition, the common place nature of it soon dulls me to the phenomenon. Worse yet, if the phenomena in question is antithetical to my values, I find it hard to stomach, and become more jaded still.

The question here is the distinction between observation and experience. Is it possible to separate these into two separate roles? Or is an amalgamation an inevitable result? Each role brings with it highs and lows, and it seems the further I delve into the former (the role of the observer) the further distanced I become from the latter and vice versa.

Someone could argue that there is a beauty in the pattern, and realizing that you are not above it (or below it for that matter) and experiencing it as some sort of fateful happening is remarkable in and of itself. But as you can clearly see, I see one view as more accurate than the other (at least in personal experience.)

Part 2: Sexorcism
Nevertheless, pick up the book if you're looking for something to read during break. It is a worthwhile read although some of it can come of as uncharacteristically sentimental. One thing that annoyed me while I was reading the book was the motif of "female liberation through sex." It isn't as overt in Ignorance as it is in some other works, but it still caught my attention. I have come to believe that this is the most overused motif in modern literature. It's one thing to use fucking as a symbolism for change and maturation or loss of innocence or whatever, but in recent memory I have read or heard of this theme being used over and over and over again...Bored housewife has an affair...BAM! Spiritual reawakening...Sheltered girl gets fucked hard...BAM! She's an entirely new person. You'd think that these women's vaginas gained some sort of magical powers after fucking (like the ability to talk espanol or some shit). It seems that this is more a reflection of Western society's love/hate relationship with eroticism than anything else.

It's not really surprising then that you meet so many young educated women (read: educated, not enlightened) who spout this sort of inane crap about "expressing themselves sexually" and "oneness with their bodies" and other idiotic mixtures of the sexual and "spiritual" spheres. It's really a result of an inherent disconnect between what's being said and what's being experienced. The projection of sex into the metaphysical realm is really just an attempt to bridge the gap between what is expected and what is felt (in the crudest of terms). It possibly also partially explains the neuroticism and attraction to drama that typifies your normal 15-35 year-old woman.

To clarify, I have no problem with fucking or women fucking (in fact I encourage it!), but I am just kind of bored with this notion that any real transformation of the self begins with a commonplace, everyday act instead of a shift in the way one thinks and orders reality. For realsies, I'm annoyed that authors use the same idea over and over again, and worse yet readers eat it up. To be fair, Kundera relates everything to sex, this just got me thinking about shit. And I'm not a misogynist....I swear...So yeah...

-MX

P.S. After writing this and seeing how much I had diverged from my original topic, I divided it into two parts.
P.P.S. A talking Vagina would be awesome.

Hell Yeah

Ain't the new sound just like the old sound?

In the interest of keeping things fresh, I have decided to put up some shit on an artist I've been listening to or was listening to. Some of you might have heard of it, but most likely not. So here goes.
...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead

To be honest, i only really care about only one of their albums, Source Tags and Codes, and have only a mild interest in their other work, but this one album is mind-blowingly good. I can't think of one rock album that touches Source Tags in this decade. The nearest comparison I can think of is to Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream, but that doesn't do this album justice. It is end to end balls-to-the-wall rock--one of the few indie rock albums I thoroughly enjoy, because its uncompromising in its vision and scope. Of course all the good will went to their heads after this album and they recorded one shitty album followed by a decent one, but whatever.

Another Morning Stoner


It Was There That I Saw You


Relative Ways



Word.

Concert0s Galore - Part Dos

El-P - 6/8/06

I don't want this to turn into a whole reviewing thing, but I figure these events are fairly significant in the scope of the whole summer. So after this, I will go lighter on the reviews (at least until Rock the Bells).

Anywho, Jerbear and i arrived around seven in the PM in NoVA. By the time we actually arrived at the concert it was about 10 and the opening act Slow Suicide Stimulus (the first of three openers, go figure) got on stage. They were solid and it was too bad that they couldn't really get the crowd behind them.

Yak Ballz followed and was a surprisingly adept performer. I think anyone who can get the crowd to chant "Yak Ballz" in unison has to have some sort of charismatic talent. It's just really fucking sad that he picked the name Yak Ballz. I am convinced that no matter how good someone is, they cannot and will not be taken seriously with such a moniker. But whatever, it's still better than "Y@k Ballz", which is how he previously used to pen his name (really Y at K Ballz, which has the double disadvantage of both sucking and not making much sense).


Hangar 18 was solid, I've never been into their music...I don't know why. WindNBreeze and Alaska are both good rappers--I just don't care for their shit aside for a few songs here and there. Nevertheless, it was nice hearing "Baking Soda" and the Welcome to the Jungle remix of "Where We At."

El-Producto finally (read: finally) came on at around 12:30, at which point he proceeded to kill it for an hour plus. The opener was "Tasmanian Pain Coaster" followed by "Smithereens"--both straight up bangers . Sometime halfway through the show, some kid offered him 200 bucks to rap "Patriotism," to which he responded by taking the kids money and telling him, "I'm not one of those rich rappers" as he counted the dude's money. He did one verse of Patriotism acapella and promised the kid a 100 bucks back.





After going through some of his other material, he ended one of my favorites, "Poisenville Kids No Wins." They did two encores consisting of "Tuned Mass Damper" and "Stepfather Factory." A great experience, with the exception of the half-hearted attempt by the douchebag next to me to "mosh" by elbowing me.

After the show, I picked up a poster and an S.S.S. CD and left, at which point Jerbear and I were accosted by WindNBreeze, who was trying to sell us the appropriately titled Hangar mixtape, "The Donkey Show." It went something like this:

WnB: Hey guys, did you enjoy the show?
Me: Yeah, that was a good set.
WnB: Do you guys have a copy of our album?
Me: Yeah, I have it at home.
WnB: I mean our new album, "The Donkey Show." 10 bucks.
Me: Nah, man. I just spent a lot of money. I'm fresh out (point to my poster and SSS CD).
WnB: Alright, I'll through in the CD and a shirt for 15 bucks.
Me: No, really...
WnB: The CD for three...Look man, I'm just trying to get a CD in your hand and make some money.
Me: Ahhh...
Jerbear: Ok.

At this point Jerbear gave him a five and we left. Word...Anyways, here's some footage from the concert (it sucks):

Flyentology (Live at the 9:30)


And some other shit. Live (not from our show) and otherwise:

Stepfather Factory


Accidents Don't Happen (Live)


Smithereens (Stop Crying)

Concert0s Galore - Part Uno

Deftones - 6/4/2006

I know I didn't put it up right after like I was supposed to. Nevertheless, I shall get to it all in due time. Onward ho:

'Juna, Bretton, and I got to the show around 730 after dining in some seedy Jamaican place on chicken pockets and coco bread (which tastes surprisingly like normal bread, go figure). The opening act was Fall of Troy. My review of their set can be summed up in one sentence: "Thank god for earplugs, if only i could push them in further." So yes, absolutely spectacular. The last song (which they announced as such) was ten minutes long and consisted of four parts. Every two minutes they would stop and I would think, "Sweet, they're finally done." And they'd start the fuck back up again with their shitty distorted bass and arpeggios played in unnecessarily complex time signatures. As much as I love Tool, I gotta blame them for this kind of crap. Just because you can switch from 4/4 to 6/8, doesn't mean you should.

Nevertheless, Deftones came on around 9:15 or so, and which point the once tepid crowd went bananas. The opening with fieteciera was an odd choice, but the crowd got pretty riled up. They rolled through a lot of their early material at the start of the set, which was kind of disappointing. From looking at some of their setlists at previous shows, it seemed they were neglecting their newer, artier material for the more nu-metallish Adrenaline and Around the Fur. In a way, it makes sense, since that material is more mosh friendly.

Thankfully, they played most of their more recent material at the end of the set, by which time douchebags didn't really mask their need to push and shove people for no reason. At one point I was pushed into the center of the mosh pit and got my smacked in the cranium pretty hard (more of my thoughts on the pit later). Minerva and Bloody Cape sounded incredible and they picked a solid selection of songs for the encore. Considering I don't much care for the song, Head-Up was the perfect end to the concert--I almost went hoarse screaming "soulfly." All in all a great experience, which would have been better if I hadn't had the shit kicked out of me by dumbasses more interested in hitting one another than listening to music.

The Set List (from someone else):

fieticeira
my own summer
lotion
mx
beware
root
one weak
digital bath
street carp
knife prty
hole in the earth
xerces
mein
bored
minus blindfold
rx queen
bloody cape
minerva

Encore:

back to school
passenger
change
headup

I can't get my hands on the pictures for the show or any video from the show, but I figure some old concert footage and other shit would suffice.

Hexagram (live)


Minerva

TONIGHT

Slow Suicide Stimulus - 10:15
Yak Ballz - 10:45
Hangar 18 - 11:20
El-P - 12:10

Come into my pretty pretty paincave!

Yes. New blog. Expect Rants and Raves with no bullshit introspection and filler. Because mindless babbling is still better than a four page treatise on why you "just can't seem to make it work" with your girl, job, blah blah.

Expect:
Music talk, politics, mindless bullshit, weird happenings, and angry tirades about shit. All seasoned with that humorous flava that's my trademark.

Next:
As soon as I get my photos from 'Juna, I shall put up a review and my thoughts about the Deftones concert. Meanwhile, enjoy some CYE:

The Big Vagina


"Big. Huge. This is me from now on."